Roman Holiday

Chapter Forty-Five

Of course, Hermione thought as Snape swept forward into the firelight, she could have counted the number of times he’d actually looked happy on the fingers of one hand … even, come to think of it, if that hand were amputated at the wrist. And his current expression, while certainly suggestive of some below-the-surface angst, was at the same time only a slightly aggravated version of his customary poker face.

If teaching Potions ever lost its luster for him, she thought with a grimace, he could always hop a broomstick to Monte Carlo and hit the baccarat tables. Even without a wand, he’d be a millionaire inside of a week.

He opened his mouth to speak - something acerbic, no doubt - and Hermione decided to head him off at the pass. “Good evening, Professor,” she said hurriedly. “Allow me to introduce you to a friend of mine - this is, um,” - she gulped slightly - “Salazar Slytherin.”

She turned to a distinctly amused-looking Salazar. “Sal,” she said, “this is Professor Severus Snape. He’s the Potions Master, and also the Head of Slytherin House.”

Apart from one errant eyebrow, which jerked spasmodically toward his hairline at Hermione’s familiar address of the beaming ghost in the armchair, Snape’s impassive expression stayed firmly in place. “Charmed,” he said sourly, and performed a vaguely perfunctory movement with his head that could have passed either as a nod of acknowledgement or a facial tic. Salazar, on the other hand, looked delighted at this turn of events, and not - as Hermione had feared - put out in the least, to have his solitude invaded by a representative of the Hogwarts Establishment.

“Likewise, I’m sure,” he said cheerfully. “What brings you this way, Professor?”

Snape glowered. “Miss Granger has been missing meals of late,” he said darkly. “I thought perhaps I’d trail along behind her this afternoon, in case it became necessary to send up a flare.”

As if on cue, Hermione’s stomach growled. She glanced surreptitiously at her watch: dinner had been over for half an hour now.

Damn.

Salazar chuckled. “Well, I daresay that the house-elves can remedy that problem,” he said. “Do stop in again, Severus - I can call you Severus, can’t I? and do call me Salazar, of course - news of my House is always welcome.”

He winked at Hermione. “And as for you, my dear, the welcome mat is always out … I needn’t extend the invitation anew.”

With that, he popped the Discman’s headphones over his ears, loaded in ‘Shades of Blue’ with a level of expertise that bespoke far more technological experience than he actually possessed, and leaned back with an anticipatory sigh of pleasure.

By the time they reached the corridor, he was humming.

**

They walked for a few minutes wrapped in a relatively benign silence that Hermione was reluctant to trade for the Inquisition that she felt was sure to follow. If he felt it necessary to lecture her, she thought with resignation, he had plenty of opportunity now.

But damned if she’d add fuel to his fire.

When Snape finally spoke, however, his tone was uncharacteristically mild. “Where’s your comrade-in-arms this afternoon?” he queried. Hermione glanced at him in surprise.

“Doing research in the library, I assume,” she said, and was encouraged by his questioningly raised eyebrows to add, “He’s pretty much taken over the Preservation Potion experiments.”

“Good,” Snape said, and sounded so emphatic that Hermione jumped. She frowned at him enquiringly and got a sardonic sidelong look in return. “The best thing you can do for Draco,” he said, “is allow him some academic ownership in his own redemption. He’s far too dependent on you as it is.”

Immediately after this bluntly delivered declaration, his mouth snapped closed, as if he regretted speaking. Hermione digested his statement in silence, wondering why he’d volunteered it; it seemed rather unlike him.

If he’d been anyone else, she’d suspect him of inviting confidences.

Now there was a laughable thought - confiding in Snape. The very suggestion ought to send her scampering for the exit and some fresh air, to clear her head, and yet … She studied him consideringly out of the corner of her eye.

He was the only other person in the world who knew the whole story from beginning to end. Whatever his reaction might be in private, he was comfortingly closemouthed; he’d take anything she said to the grave before he’d divulge it to another party. And … the dilemma over which she’d been agonizing, for the last few weeks, wasn’t exactly something that anyone else she knew would understand.

She hesitated, then took a deep breath.

In for a penny, in for a pound.

“He says he loves me,” she blurted out, and immediately flushed bright red. “And I don’t know …” She dropped her eyes to her twisting hands, unable to finish the sentence.

Oh, God, this was a bad idea.

“I’m sorry,” she said miserably. “I know you don’t care …”

“Of course he loves you,” Snape said coolly, still looking straight ahead. Hermione goggled at him.

“Sorry?”

“You heard me,” he said. His face was as impassive as ever, but there might have been a hint of sympathy in his tone. “You’re his rescuer, after all - his avenging angel. You treat him like a person, rather than a commodity, and he’s a child accustomed to the cold hand of indifference. He’s given his heart away to the first genuine kind word, that’s all. Don’t take it personally.”

“Um …” Hermione stammered. Whatever else she’d expected him to say, that wasn’t it. “I don’t think …”

He waved her impatiently into silence.

“Don’t interrupt.” He looked annoyed with himself for speaking, but he didn’t stop. “There’s more to it than that, of course - you’re a Muggle-born, and so falling in love with you feels rebellious to him, even though he’s really only trading one leash for another.” His jaw clenched, as if he was trying to hold back whatever was next in his arsenal of Strong Opinions. “You might rescue him from Lord Voldemort, and you might not. But you can’t save him from damage already done.”

“What do you mean?” Hermione demanded, white-faced with what she desperately wanted to be outrage, but suspected was closer to fear. Snape eyed her sharply.

“Draco’s never going to be your lover, Hermione,” he said, “as much as he is your acolyte. Worship and love aren’t the same. And you’re perceptive enough to know that already, even if he doesn’t see it yet.”

His lip curled. “Now, if you don’t mind - any more requests for advice-to-the-lovelorn should be directed to your parents; in case you hadn’t noticed, I’m hardly the poster child for successful relationships.”

**

Wow, Hermione thought, shaken. She wasn’t sure about all of what he’d said, but some of the more shocking sentences had curled into her gut with enough chilly certainty to make her light-headed.

Where had that come from?

She shook off the fog of dizziness swirling in her brain, and gritted her teeth. Her choice was clear; either she could continue to gape at him like a codfish on ice, or she could forge ahead with the conversation. The latter option was far more dangerous than the former, certainly - but he’d raised more questions than he’d answered with that cool little précis of her recent love life.

And she’d jump off the top of the Astronomy Tower before she’d let him shut down the dialogue now.

Besides, she might never get another opportunity.

“My parents,” she said in a tone heavy with irony. “You want to know what my parents have to say about relationships?”

Snape gave her a narrow look, then shrugged. “I have the feeling,” he said darkly, “that I’m going to hear it anyway.” Hermione ignored him.

“My mother,” she said, “on the way to the doctor’s office to pick up the birth-control prescription she engineered for me last summer, told me that men are like used automobiles.” Her lips twisted wryly. “Her advice is to ‘test-drive as many as possible before you put any money down’. Direct quote.”

Snape’s thin mouth twitched with what might have been humor, immediately suppressed. “Forward-thinking of her,” he commented. “And your father?”

Hermione bit her lip. “Says that I shouldn’t settle for anything but true love.”

This trembly little sentence sank into a deep pool of silence that reverberated through the corridor like an echo, and was followed by Snape’s elegant one-shouldered shrug.

“They’re both right, of course,” he said matter-of-factly. “And as long as we’re on the topic of gratuitous advice, here’s some from me: there isn’t a single man at this school who’s worth a second look from you.”

“Even you?” Hermione blurted, then immediately clapped her hand over her mouth, horrified at her lack of circumspection.

Snape glowered at her.

“Especially me,” he said bitterly. “Not that I’m not interested, mind you - there’s no point in denying something that’s so goddamn apparent that even a thick-headed infant like Potter can figure it out without a word spoken. But listen when I say this: there’s not one chance in a million that I’m going to act on that interest.”

His eyes were hard and bleak; his face was turned toward hers, but he was seeing straight through her to something else entirely.

“Go to college, Hermione,” he said harshly. “Get a job. Dance the night away in short skirts and throw dinner parties and break another dozen hearts. Get your own broken a couple of times, too, if you can.”

Hermione started to say something, but he held up a hand to stop her. She’d never seen anyone look so sad, yet so determined.

“And then,” he said - in a clipped, rusty voice that sounded so strange coming from him that Hermione never would have recognized it as his. “After you’ve done all that … if you decide that you still have unfinished business with me - come back then, and we’ll talk about it. Until then, stay away from me.”

His lips twisted in a heartbreakingly familiar pattern of self-derision. “I’m not yet so unscrupulous,” he said, “that I’ll steal your youth from you, just because I threw away my own.”

They’d been at the door to the trophy room for at least ten minutes. Hermione, unable to stop herself, lifted a trembling hand to his gaunt, set face, and found her fingers caught in his.

Slowly, slowly, he lifted them to his lips, never breaking the electric thread that was her gaze and his linked. For an instant, she felt his mouth brush her hand, like a searing brand of something indelible burned into her palm, more eternal than a thousand declarations.

And then he was gone.

**